


hello operator.

by falter



Category: Comics Industry RPF, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 19:45:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3782116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falter/pseuds/falter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="https://twitter.com/kellysue/status/576092558448668672">https://twitter.com/kellysue/status/576092558448668672</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	hello operator.

She's coloring one of her drawings on the patio when it all starts. 

Papa's been helping her with her picture, but the doorbell rang so he went inside. She hears voices, and a quiet clatter-scrape, like something settling on the hallway floor. She's listening carefully because papa's ears don't work very good; she exercises hers as much as possible so they stay strong. It sounds like a delivery. 

She puts the caps on her markers, nice and tight so they won't dry out, and keeps listening. Whatever it is, papa will tell her about it when he comes back outside. She'll try to guess first, though. She curves her hands around one ear to make the sound waves go in the right place and concentrates. Papa's singing to himself, so she can picture what he's doing and where he is: going into the kitchen, maybe to get the little knife he likes to use on boxes. Coming back to the hallway, and there's a new noise - a dragging sound, like the box is heavy and not made of cardboard. Maybe it's like the box at the end of Indiana Jones, made of wood. Maybe it's a box of treasure.

There's a creak, and another clatter, and papa makes a weird loud yelping noise, like he's surprised. She listens with all her might, but nothing else happens.

She picks up the red marker, but sets it down again without uncapping it. She could finish the drawing and be ready to show it off to papa if she's quick, but that will mean they aren't doing it together, so instead she decides to take him his coffee cup. That way if he forgot they were coloring because of whatever came to the door, she can remind him. 

He isn't in the living room, or his office, or the kitchen. He's still by the front door. There **is** a big box, she was right. It's made of rough wood, and it's sitting in the middle of the entryway, with the top pried off and sitting next to it. Papa isn't close to it, though - he's standing against the wall, frowning and squinting a little at the box. He's being silly again and left his glasses in his office; maybe she should have brought them instead of the coffee cup. 

He startles a little when he sees her walk out from the kitchen, so he must be thinking pretty hard about something. 

"Beezle, honey, go back outside, okay?" Papa says. "And, um. Close the patio door for me."

"Why?" she says. "Aren't we coloring more? What came?" She steps forward to get a better look, and papa flails a little, trying to get between her and the box. He's still holding his little knife, and he looks like he's holding it really tight. 

"Is it a surprise?" she asks. That's a good reason that she shouldn't see it, but she can't stop herself from looking. 

The box is weird, though. It's full of fog, but really dark black fog. It looks somehow blacker than the usual color of darkness, like maybe if you took nighttime and put it under a mountain and then poured black paint on it and then closed your eyes and tried to see it like that. And it's moving like there's something boiling underneath it. 

"Yes," says papa. His voice sounds a little funny, though. He shifts sideways, crowding her back toward the kitchen and getting in the way of her seeing the box anymore. 

That's alright then. She steps back into the kitchen, and she's halfway through the living room when she remembers that she's still carrying papa's coffee cup. He'll want to fill it back up, so she really should leave it in the kitchen.

If she's very very quiet, that's only so she can get more listening exercise. Papa's backing slowly through the doorway into the kitchen, so he doesn't see her setting the mug on the counter.

There's a hissing coming from the hall, loud like an angry cat. It's probably not a cat. But maybe it is a cat - that would explain why papa isn't getting close to it. Mama is out with her friends being a coven today, though, so maybe they forgot it was coming and there's no one else who can pet it and make it happy. Helping is worth spoiling the surprise, she thinks, and she steps forward and takes papa's hand.

That surprises him again, though, which is strange, and he squeezes her hand too tight. She can see the box now, though, and before he has a chance to get in her way again, she spots the curve of someone's head, someone small, their angry glaring eyes peeking over the edge of the box. 

The eyes are focused on papa's face at first. It takes whatever it is a moment to notice her, but when it does, they widen and the hissing stops. A girl, a littler girl than she is, with glossy brown hair and a round, serious face is staring at her.

"Are you Bandit?" the girl asks. 

Bandit nods. The girl climbs over the edge of the box; her shoes make a hard, decisive noise against the hallway tile, and wisps of darkness swirl around her before they retreat back to the box and disappear. 

"I'm here to play," says the girl. "I'm Tallulah."

"Hello," says Bandit.

"Um," says papa.

***

Now that Tallulah is standing in the house, the dark stuff is totally gone. Papa has to get her backpack out of the bottom of the box for Talullah, though, because she's too little to reach it by herself without climbing all the way back in again, and because he doesn't want Bandit to get it even though she's totally big enough.

"Are you sleeping over?" 

Tallulah just looks at her for a minute, then turns to look at papa and frowns.

"Would," papa starts, then coughs and looks down at his feet. She doesn't really blame him - Tallulah's frown is making her feel a little funny, too. "Would you like to sleep over, Tallulah? We'd love to have you stay, if that's okay with your parents." He shuffles his feet a little. "Should I, um. Call them?"

"It's okay with them," says Talullah. "I'm staying over for the weekend. Mommy made you a promise."

"Oh! Oh, okay. I..." Papa trails off again. "You don't have to..."

Tallulah cuts him off. "I told mommy that she can't treat her word lightly. I don't object to the terms; your effort on her behalf is appreciated." She turns back to Bandit, and smiles. It's only a little scary, so Bandit smiles back.

"How come you were inside a box?" She's pretty sure papa wants to know too, and she's also pretty sure he doesn't want Tallulah to frown at him again.

Tallulah smiles bigger, though. "Mommy said she'd ship me here. Those were the terms."

Bandit isn't really sure what that means, but papa seems like he thinks it makes sense. "Wasn't it uncomfortable?" she asks. "Were you in there a long time? What was the smoky stuff?"

Tallulah laughs. "Silly. I wasn't really in the box, I just came out of it." She looks up at papa again, and continues. "I was at my house, then I went in the door that no one else can use, and then I was in the place where hope is killed with knives, and then I got out when you opened the box. Duh."

Papa makes his nervous laugh sound, then takes a deep breath. "Do you like to color, Tallulah? We were coloring."

***

It turns out that Talullah doesn't like coloring very much. She only does a little bit before she stops and climbs up on the table to get a better look down the hill and over the other houses nearby. Papa doesn't make her get down from the table, even though he never lets Bandit do that. Maybe he isn't worried that Tallulah will crack her head like he worries about Bandit. 

It's okay that Tallulah isn't coloring, because she's really interesting to talk to, and she doesn't mind if Bandit keeps working on her picture. 

Papa's not much help; he keeps picking up markers but he forgets to take the tops off. 

***

Mama gets home before dinner time, and Aunt Chantie stays on the patio while mama and papa talk inside. Aunt Chantie tries to talk to them, but Tallulah acts like she can't hear her. It's very uncomfortable; Bandit has to keep talking to Tallulah, because they are having a really interesting conversation about Swamp Thing - Tallulah knows a lot about Abby Arcane, maybe more than papa does, but she's still interested in Bandit's opinions. But Bandit also has to talk when Aunt Chantie says stuff, because she doesn't want to be mean. It's confusing. It's kind of a relief when Uncle Jimmy comes to pick her up and she leaves.

"You don't owe anyone your attention," says Tallulah, after Aunt Chantie has gone and before papa and mama come back outside. "You don't owe anyone anything. They can crawl and bleed first."

"Okay," says Bandit. "Do you like Aqua Bats? Papa made an Aqua Bats and we could watch it if you want later."

***

Things Bandit learns about Tallulah:

\- She has a big brother.  
\- She lives in the actual woods.  
\- She is going to be the incarnation of unremitting anguish when she gets bigger.  
\- She likes running races.  
\- She has a middle name that starts with L, too, but it stands for Louise instead of Lee.  
\- She doesn't like yogurt, even the kind with strawberries.  
\- She already has a job which is being the goddess of chaos and despair.  
\- She doesn't get money from her job.  
\- She likes telling stories better than drawing stories.  
\- She is two years younger than Bandit, but she doesn't act like a baby, so it doesn't make anything awkward.

Tallulah also explains what _unremitting_ means when she asks. It means **all of the time** ; Bandit's pretty sure it's the kind of word that papa will like if she surprises him with it later, so she's going to try to remember it.

***

Papa made dinner, so Bandit sets the table while Tallulah and mama have a conversation. 

It turns out that mama is best at talking to Tallulah, after Bandit. Tallulah isn't exactly nice to her, but mama frowns right back at her instead of going all nervous like papa, so dinner goes okay. Papa drops his fork on the floor three times before he starts to eat with his spoon instead. Even mama laughs when he drops his spoon, and she makes him get up from the table and hug her until he starts laughing too. 

There's ice cream after dinner that mama brought home for a surprise after papa called her. Bandit and Tallulah build a big tent in the living room out of chairs and a blanket, and they take their bowls into it to eat. Tallulah makes the tent walls turn into a windstorm so no one can spy on them, and talks about how to detect zombies and all about the giant spiders that live inside clouds on sunny days. She holds Bandit's hand so the stories stay the fun kind of scary. It's pretty great.

***

It's a very good weekend, even though there are a couple of little fires and Tallulah accidentally turns papa's fingers into snakes. She changes them back pretty quickly, and she even apologizes like she means it. 

On Sunday afternoon, Tallulah hugs Bandit hard when the delivery man rings the doorbell, frowns at papa and mama, and climbs back in the box. They both have school on Monday, and Bandit thinks Tallulah maybe secretly misses her brother, even though she doesn't say so. 

Maybe next time, mama and papa will let Bandit go to Portland to play.

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this conversation:
>
>>   
>  _looking at this exchange: https://twitter.com/kellysue/status/576092558448668672_   
>  _and seriously, bandit would be WAY WAY WAY out of her weight class_   
>  _i mean. bandit is a sweet quiet little thing; tallulah is the young goddess of despair and also the embodiment of most glorious chaos_   
>  _...also i think bandit is just this side of too old for her dad to matchmake her friendships_
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> _hah hah hah hah hah_  
>  _omg I want the adventures of Tallulah and Bandit though_  
>> 
>> _yeah so do i. i imagine it playing out a bit like the adventures of harley quinn & poison ivy_  
>  _except that tallulah is the young goddess of despair, etc, and bandit likes to color and wear costumes while having tea parties._  
> 
> And then I tried to write it.
> 
> Many thanks to raanve for beta help!


End file.
